Amadeus welcomes Erasmus students to the ICC

By welcoming four Erasmus students to Birmingham’s International Convention Centre (ICC), to complete a three month placement as part of their university course. 

Erasmus is a European student exchange programme established in 1987 offering university students a possibility of studying or working abroad in another European country. 

As part of the Amadeus exchange, students from Ces Santa Maria de Los Angeles College in Malaga, Spain will shadow managers and supervisors to gain hands on experience of different areas across the business, including; Conference and Banqueting, Food and Beverage and Deployment. 

They will learn how to use the systems that Amadeus has in place to manage staffing, stock and cash and on completion of the course, they will work together to produce an induction manual for new starters within management or supervisory structure of the ICC Amadeus team, based on their learning’s.

Martin Davies, General Manager of ICC Catering, said: “The ICC Amadeus management team is committed to developing talent and sharing knowledge and expertise, so offering placements for Erasmus students was something we were really keen to do. Amadeus has almost 40 years of experience in the catering industry so we can really add value to the students’ education.

Amadeus is currently running an innovation programme – Amagination - which aims to identify and implement a number of innovative products and services at the ICC. The Erasmus students, who will be based at the ICC until 26 June, will have the opportunity to get involved in the project and see how innovations are implemented. 

Elaine Dicken, Recruitment and Deployment Manager at the ICC, has been working with Erasmus delegates to arrange the placements. She said: “By offering Erasmus placements, we are able to introduce the ICC Amadeus Standard of Excellence to a European market which will hopefully be carried forward. It is an exciting prospect and one that we hope to offer to even more students from other parts of Europe as well as the British Isles in the future.”

The introduction of Erasmus placement programme follows the launch of an Amadeus apprenticeship scheme in conjunction with Solihull College in 2012 that has to date benefitted 61 local young people.